


Of Blanket Forts and First Kisses

by rowanix



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 21:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20954960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanix/pseuds/rowanix
Summary: Richie could not pinpoint the moment he started loving Eddie, but he could pinpoint the moment he realised it. During a sleepover, in a blanket fort, with fairy lights twinkling and clumsy kisses that were supposed to be just practice for when they'd one day be kissing girls instead.





	Of Blanket Forts and First Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> These goddamn dorks have me writing fanfic again. Enjoy.

Richie could not pinpoint the moment he started loving Eddie. He could, however, pinpoint the moment he realised it. 

It all came rushing back the moment he’d stepped foot back in Derry and caught sight of his old friend, his hair carefully brushed back, eyebrows permanently furrowed, dressed in a dorky polo shirt and rambling about his food restrictions to the waitress. He hadn’t changed a bit. He’d grown, of course, though not by much, and he’d gained the odd grey hair and laughter lines (though the frown lines were more prominent), but he was still the same old Eddie. Still paranoid about every little thing, still ready to fight anyone who even slightly provoked him, and still ridiculously, infuriatingly cute whenever he went off on one of his tirades.

Richie felt every one of the years he’d spent in love with this man all crash onto him at once, and Richie, being Richie, had downed some shots and made as many ‘your mom’ jokes at Eddie’s expense as was possible just to have something to say, some facade to hide behind. But he remembered. He remembered quick-fire banter and shared ice creams and legs pressing against each other when they squeezed into Richie’s single bed or the hammock to read a comic book between them, fingers brushing as they wrestled over the pages and sending little sparks of electricity up Richie’s arms. And he remembered the sleepover and the blanket fort and their flushed cheeks and hot breath as they shared that moment, something that was so innocent but felt so dangerous, as they sat hidden beneath the folds of old sheets away from the world and all the cruel people in it. 

They’d been twelve and Richie’s mom (after much begging from her son) had managed to persuade Ms Kaspbrak to let her fragile little Eddie Bear to stay over at Richie’s house for a sleepover. 

“They’re just a couple of boys,” Maggie Tozier had said. “They can’t get up to much.” And Eddie’s mom had piled her arms with all of Eddie’s prescription medication along with a list of what he should take and when and what to do if he started feeling sick and all the numbers for every doctor in town. She’d grasped Eddie tightly and told him to come home straight away if he so much as coughed, and it took a while for Richie’s mom to prize Eddie away and bundle him into the car. 

Eddie, though still overly paranoid and more than a little disgusted at the state of Richie’s room, seemed to relish in the temporary freedom of being away from his overbearing mother, and they’d eaten enough candy to make them sick and played video games on Richie’s second-hand Nintendo and wrestled until Eddie had accidentally elbowed Richie in the face and nearly broken his glasses. 

After Maggie had scolded them, she’d gathered together a stack of old moth-eaten sheets, tangled fairy lights that had still not been put away since Christmas and the small mountain of ugly cushions Richie’s grandma kept buying her, and dumped the lot on Richie’s bed, telling the boys to entertain themselves quietly because she had work to do and she’d better not have to come up here again until bedtime.

So, complaining that this was such a childish thing to do, the boys put together a wonky but stable blanket fort, a nest of cushions and blankets inside and enough glow from the twinkling fairy lights to read comics by. Richie was secretly rather proud of it, and inside it felt like their own personal space, just him and Eddie, able to just exist together as they were away from the eyes of anyone who might judge them for it.

They tucked themselves away inside, the space just a little too small to avoid any physical contact, and they read comics until they grew bored and then talked about anything and everything. It was always so easy to talk to Eds.

“- and Bill wouldn’t fucking shut up about that kiss with Bev Marsh like he’s the only one to kiss anyone ever. And it’s so gross!” Eddie was rambling “You know kissing causes mono? Mononu- mononucleoli or something. That’s why they call it the kissing disease, you get it through other people’s saliva.”

“Oh yeah, I know,” said Richie. “I got it one time.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah, from your mom.”

Eddie smacked him in the face with the nearest cushion, knocking Richie’s glasses askew as he snorted. “That is so not fucking funny.”

Richie adjusted his glasses and tossed the cushion back at Eddie. “I bet all the girl’s at school have that mono thing. You know girls practice kissing with each other?”

Eddie frowned, looking sceptical. “They do? Why?”

“Yeah, I heard my sister talking about it with her friend. It’s so when they have their first kiss with guys they’re good at it. I mean, would you want to have your first kiss with a chick only for her to think you suck?”

Eddie’s mouth twisted into some sort of a grimace at that, though whether it was the thought of his first kiss sucking or the thought of kissing in general, Richie didn’t know. “But doesn’t the kiss with her friend count as her first?”

“Of course not,” Richie scoffed. “They’re both girls. It only counts if it’s a girl kissing a guy, duh.”

“Do-” Eddie shuffled in his spot amongst the cushions. “Do boys do it? Practice with each other?”

Richie blinked, his heart suddenly racing for reasons he couldn’t fathom at that moment. “Um- I mean- If they do they wouldn’t say, right? Coz Bowers…”

“So maybe other boys do and we just don’t know?” said Eddie. He was looking at anything but Richie, his eyes darting around anxiously. “So… It’s probably normal for boys too, right? I mean if we-”

Richie felt his face burn and nearly choked on air. He made a show of cleaning his glasses, just to have something to do with his hands. “Yeah, I mean, it wouldn’t count, obviously. It would just be practice. For when we kiss girls.”

“For when we kiss girls,” Eddie repeated, nodding. 

“We could if you want,” Richie blurted. “I mean- I don’t- I don’t mind. I-”

“Have you kissed anyone before?”

“Oh yeah, I get a lot of practice from your mom,” Richie said instantly without thinking, but he was grateful for his lack of filter when Eddie rolled his eyes, some of the tension ebbing away in the midst of their usual snark. 

“Seriously, trashmouth, have you?”

“No,” Richie said honestly.

Eddie’s eyes travelled up to meet Richie’s. “Me neither.”

“Coz of all the mono?”

“Right,” said Eddie, not looking away. 

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have mono.”

“Good.”

For a time, the sound of their breathing as they stared at one another was the only thing filling the silence of the fort, then Eddie gave a lurch forward. They didn't even manage a kiss, as their noses bashed together and Eddie’s forehead met Richie’s glasses, then they both looked at one another and burst into laughter. 

“I think this is exactly why girls practice,” Richie said as he wiped tears of mirth from his eyes and Eddie took a puff from his inhaler because he’d been laughing so hard it had made him wheeze. 

“No shit,” said Eddie, rubbing at the red mark on his forehead left by Richie’s glasses.

“They go in more slowly when they do it in the movies,” said Richie. He slipped his glasses up onto his head and, with a shaking hand, reached out to touch Eddie’s cheek. “Like- like this.”

Eddie’s face was just a blur now, but Richie could tell his eyes were on his lips and his face was flushed, and Richie could picture in clear detail the little blotches of pink on his freckled cheeks and his big brown perpetually worried eyes. Cute cute _ cute _.

They’d leaned in, both boys at once and far more slowly, and their lips finally met in a sloppy clash of teeth, once, twice, and Richie didn’t care that they weren’t doing it right because it was Eddie and Eddie would always be right for him.

“Boys, you better be going off to sleep soon!”

Richie jerked back at the sound of his mom’s voice, his face flushing and heart racing as though he’d just been caught doing something bad. Something really really bad. But his mom had only called in from the hallway and hadn’t seen, and when Richie looked back over at Eddie their eyes met in crystal clear understanding that they’d never tell anyone what had just happened, not even Bill or Stanley. Because even if it had only been practice, even if it didn’t count, boys who kissed boys were dead boys.

Later that night, the two boys lay beside each other after deciding on sleeping in the blanket fort rather than letting it go to waste. Eddie was fast asleep and Richie lay still next to him, their hands resting only inches apart between them. He watched Eddie's face, marvelling at how serene he looked in his sleep without the worries of his mother piling on top of him. His finger’s itched to reach out to Eddie to touch his hand, but then he rolled onto his back, his hands flying up to press the palms into this eye sockets and tug at his hair with his fingertips. 

“Shit shit shit.”

“Richie?” Eddie’s voice was slurred, and when Richie looked over him, his eyes seemed out of focus. Richie silently cursed himself; he hadn’t meant to wake him. “You okay?”

“Just had a bad dream,” Richie lied.

Eddie propped himself up on one elbow, his forehead creased in concern, and Richie both hated and loved him for that look. “What happened?”

Richie looked at Eddie a moment, at his deep brown worried eyes, then he looked away. “Oh, it was awful, Eds, I dreamt your mom didn’t love me anymore.”

Eddie gave a snort of indignation before rolling over, his back to Richie, who at once missed his friend’s stupid, cute face. “You’re an asshole.”

“I know,” said Richie, too quiet for Eddie to hear. He rolled over, too, and squeezed his eyes shut.

_ Boys who like boys are dead boys _, he told himself, but it did nothing to subdue his treacherous heart.

He hoped the feeling would fade, that he’d see Eddie as just a friend again and would never want anything more, that maybe he’d even find a girl he liked better. But then It happened and he’d had to witness Eddie - infuriating, adorable Eddie - work himself up into a panic attack but set foot in Neibolt all the same because Bill needed him to. He’d watched him almost die at the hands of that clown, breaking his arm in the process, and he’d yelled at Bill and shoved him because he couldn’t bear that feeling of nearly losing Eddie. That wrenching in his chest that something could have happened to him. That the feeling that his heart was trying to tear itself from him every time Eddie was near - because it belonged to him and not Richie - would stay inside him forever. That burning chasm of things unsaid ate away at him, desperate for a release, but he wouldn’t say those things to Eddie. Couldn’t.

So instead he carved them into the kissing bridge, where they would sit forever, unchanging and waiting, until he was ready to face them again.

* * *

Twenty-seven years later, Richie knelt by the wooden fence and traced his fingers over those letters. Those three little symbols that held so much, worn and browned with age. Then he drew out a pocket knife and repeated the same process he’d carried out all those years ago, carving everything he’d ever felt for Eddie into the wood with the tip of his knife. He was just about to start on the ‘E’ when he was interrupted.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Richie whirled around, knife still in hand, and Eddie had to jerk away before it sliced into his arm.

“Jesus, asshole, be careful where you’re swinging that,” Eddie said, scowl ever-present on his face. “It’s probably riddled with bacteria.”

Richie stared blankly at Eddie for a moment before his eyes travelled to the spot on Eddie’s chest, drawn there like a magnet so often after what he’d seen in the deadlights. The claw tearing through Eddie’s chest, the blood spilling from his mouth and dripping onto Richie’s face. He could still feel the heat of that blood sometimes. But when he’d been released from the deadlights for real, he’d managed to tug Eddie out of the way just as the claw came crashing down, and Eddie had been unharmed. But Richie could still see the great bloody hole in his chest whenever he closed his eyes.

“So what were you-” Eddie started. He leaned to the side to look around Richie and stopped, his expression frozen.

Richie swallowed thickly. “I uh-” _ Shit. Quick Richie, think of a straight explanation for this. _ “The ‘E’ stands for Elisabeth Shue.”

Eddie blinked at him. “Elisabeth Shue?” he repeated.

“Yep,” said Richie, leaning into his lie. “You know how much I loved the Karate Kid.” That part was true, at least, but he’d always been a tad more interested in Ralph Macchio. He had a weak spot for brown-eyed boys.

Eddie gave him a deadpan expression and held out his hand. “Give me the knife, Rich.”

Richie wordlessly held it out, a part of him half expecting for Eddie to take it and scratch the ‘E’ off the bridge. But when Eddie moved around Richie, he brought the knife to a different spot entirely. His body blocked Richie’s view and he didn’t dare move closer, the weight of what Eddie had seen pressing down on him. He definitely had not believed the Elisabeth Shue lie.

“You know how fucked up this all is?” said Eddie, not looking up from whatever he was carving. “How we just forgot everything that happened here. I forgot how my fucking dad died, what the fuck’s up with that? And learning to ride my bike and going to school and my first kiss…” He trailed off and Richie swallowed. “You know, whenever anyone asked, I always said it was with some girl in high school, but it wasn't. It was here. With a dumb boy in a blanket fort. How could I just forget that?”

Richie buried his hands deep in his pockets as he always did when he couldn’t think what to do with them. “It didn’t count, though.”

“Didn’t it?” said Eddie, looking up at Richie, his eyes soft and wrinkled around the edges. “I always counted it, to tell you the truth. Until I forgot, that is.”

Then he stood up, and Richie saw what he’d been carving: a crude, jagged ‘R’ within a heart.

Richie stared at it, for once at a complete loss for words. He’d seen that heart before, faded into the wood, but he’d never thought…

“I’m not as good at carving as you,” Eddie said as he stood by Richie, eying his handy work. “But in my defence, it was initially done with a house key. My mom would’ve wrapped me in bubble-wrap if she found out I had a knife on me.”

“You-” Richie started but his voice seemed to meet a block before he could finish and he finally knew how Bill felt with that stutter of his all the time. “You-” He swallowed. “What does it stand for?”

Eddie smiled softly. He turned his head slightly to look up at Richie, his brown eyes twinkling and his expression so soft. “It stands for Ralph Macchio.”

That was enough to snap Richie out of his trance. He turned and pummeled Eddie’s arm as his friend snorted. “You asshole!”

Eddie nudged Richie with his elbow, still grinning. “It stands for Richie, you fucking idiot. What else?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Richie exclaimed. “You never said anything!”

“Neither did you.”

“I didn’t want Bowers to beat me to death!”

“Well, neither did I!”

They stared at each other, then Richie ran a hand down his face. “Fuck this town, man. And fuck growing up in the eighties.”

“And fuck Bowers,” said Eddie. “And that dumb fucking clown.”

“Sloppy bitches,” said Richie, and Eddie laughed. Richie would never get tired of that sound.

Eddie looked back over at the bridge, at the carvings done by two boys with too many feelings and nowhere to put them. “You never finished the ‘E’,” he said. He knelt back down by the barrier and finished the job himself, carving his own initial next to Richie’s. R + E.

Then he stood back up, closed the knife and handed it back to Richie, their fingers brushing and eliciting that oh so familiar spark up Richie’s arm. But neither moved away, and Eddie’s hand came up to push Richie’s glasses on top of his head, and their breath mingled in the air between them until Richie tilted his head down and closed the space. 

There was no clashing of teeth this time - they’d both had practice. Their mouths moulded against one another as though two halves of a whole finally reunited, and if Eddie felt any pain in his injured cheek when his mouth slipped open and Richie delved deeper, he didn’t show it, or didn’t care. Richie’s hand came up to rest on Eddie’s chest, relishing in the proof that the surprisingly defined muscle beneath his shirt was solid and whole, and Eddie dug his finger’s into Richie’s mop of hair, tangling it even more.

Eddie was the first to pull away. He looked at Richie, his eyes still on his mouth and his breath hot on Richie’s face. “I need to get a divorce,” he said.

Richie’s brain was kind of fuzzy after what had just happened, the rush of endorphins muddling his thoughts. “We’re not married yet?”

Eddie snorted and gave his chest a light shove which did nothing as he was still holding onto Richie with his other hand. “From my wife, idiot. Did you just say ‘yet’?”

Richie grinned stupidly and ignored the question. “Oh, I forgot you married your mom! She can join us, you know? I’m all for it.”

“Fucking hilarious,” Eddie deadpanned. “Back to that ‘yet’.”

“What about it?”

“That’s pretty gay, bro.”

“I’m not-” Richie stopped, the automatic denial still on his tongue. “Fine. Okay. Yeah, I’m gay. I’m a huge fucking flamer like Bowers always said. Happy?”

“Very,” said Eddie, and kissed him again.

Later, back in the old Town House, they constructed a fresh new blanket fort in Richie’s room and practised many more things that totally didn’t count. And after, late at night, they lay side by side, Eddie fast asleep, his face free of worry lines even in the aftermath of all that had happened. Richie watched him, then reached out his hand and took Eddie’s, twining their finger’s together like he’d wanted to all those years ago.

“Richie?” Eddie slurred, cracking his eyes open blearily. He squeezed Richie’s hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” said Richie quietly. “I’m good.”

And Eddie smiled softly and closed his eyes once more, his worry lines fading away as he was pulled back into the sweet calm of sleep.

Richie could not pinpoint the exact moment he started loving Eddie, but he could pinpoint the moment - that exact moment - that he was a complete and utter goner. 


End file.
